Oakland CHP Pursuit Crash Kills a Beloved Teacher, Renewing Debate Over Police Chases

The death of a high school teacher who was struck in Oakland this week by the driver of a vehicle fleeing California Highway Patrol officers has intensified an already heated debate over police pursuit policies in the city.

Marvin Boomer, a veteran Castlemont High School math teacher who also worked as an academic coach, was pronounced dead at the scene on Wednesday after the vehicle slammed into him and another pedestrian around 7:45 p.m. at the intersection of East 21st Street and 12th Avenue. 

The second victim, a woman in her 40s who has not been identified, was rushed to the hospital and is stable, according to Oakland police, who were not involved in the pursuit.

CHP and the Oakland Police Department said they have each launched separate investigations. The driver, 18-year-old Eric Scott Hernandez-Garcia of Oakland, was arrested and booked into Santa Rita Jail on multiple felony charges, CHP said.

The pursuit started when CHP officers tried to stop Hernandez-Garcia as he drove a vehicle that was “wanted in association with a felony evading incident,” the agency said. CHP officers pursued Hernandez-Garcia on the ground for just over 30 seconds before pulling back as he drove west from 102nd Avenue, with aircraft monitoring him overhead. 

Seconds after CHP reinitiated its ground pursuit at a second location, the driver hit a minivan near Park Boulevard, causing minor injuries to its passengers, before continuing east to where the fatal crash occurred, CHP said.

“While CHP terminated pursuit within mere seconds and CHP fixed-wing aircraft continued to monitor overhead, Hernandez-Garcia’s reckless and dangerous driving caused him to crash twice, within seconds of each other,” the agency said in a statement. 

But Cat Brooks, the co-founder and executive director of the Anti-Police Terror Project, directed much of the blame toward the officers who started the chase.

“No one was in danger until CHP decided to engage in a high-speed chase over a vehicle. What a waste of life,” said Brooks, whose group is holding a vigil on Friday evening at the site of the crash and demanding that CHP end what it called “reckless” chases. 

“Police high-speed chases kill more people every year than tornadoes, hurricanes, floods, and lightning combined,” she said. “They do not prevent crime. They do not solve crime.”

The crash happened just hours before the final day of the school year, leaving the Castlemont community in a state of shock and mourning as it prepared for Friday’s graduation ceremonies. 

“Everyone was devastated, not just because someone had died, but because it was Boomer,” said George Arterberry, a fellow Castlemont teacher who started working at the school the same year as Boomer.

Arterberry said he and Boomer both graduated from historically Black universities in the South and came to Oakland with a deep sense of mission and purpose around empowering the next generation of Black and brown students. 

“He was the genuine article. Authentic, likable, charismatic, relatable,” Arterberry said. “And so instantly, when you would meet him — whether you were one of the kids, teachers, adults — you liked him. You couldn’t help it. There just didn’t seem to be an agenda with him. He wasn’t trying to prove something.”

After teaching math for four years at Castlemont, Boomer headed its career education department. While working at the school, he also completed a doctorate in philosophy from North Carolina State University, with a focus on educational research and policy analysis.

In a statement, the Oakland Unified School District said Boomer was a “beloved and vital member of the Castlemont family,” where he served for eight years. 

“His warmth, wisdom, and joyful spirit left a lasting impact on students and fellow educators,” the district said. “We extend our deepest condolences to everyone impacted by this loss. Dr. Boomer was more than a teacher — he was a mentor, a friend, and a source of strength and inspiration in the halls of Castlemont.” 

The deadly crash comes a week after the Oakland Police Commission suggested it was leaning toward revising OPD’s pursuit policy, which many residents argue is too restrictive and allows suspects to easily escape authorities. 

Those rules, issued under former Police Chief LeRonne Armstrong in late 2022, following a spike in police pursuits and deadly crashes, require officers who don’t have additional command approval to end a chase if any vehicles involved exceed 50 mph on city streets.

A new proposal, submitted to the commission last week by current Chief Floyd Mitchell, would rescind the pre-authorization requirement, a rule that he argued “deviates from national best practice.” Mitchell noted that police pursuits in Oakland have plummeted since the 2022 rule was put in place — from 130 that year to 68 in 2024 — even as violent crime in the city increased. 

However, CHP officers are not bound by the city’s pursuit rules. Gov. Gavin Newsom, who deployed the CHP to Oakland last year to patrol high-crime areas and target vehicle theft, sideshows and organized retail crime, has been openly critical of Oakland’s chase rules. Last year, he even threatened to withdraw CHP support unless the restrictions were loosened.

The governor’s office declined to comment on this week’s pursuit crash, instead referring KQED to CHP. 

Brooks, of APTP, criticized the Oakland police chief for seeking to loosen restrictions on chases in the city, suggesting he was bowing to outside pressure. Even with the existing restrictions, she argued, the department has repeatedly violated its own policies. 

“This is another knee-jerk policy reaction. It’s not going to do anything to make us safe, but it’s going to actually make us much less safe,” she said. “We have the tangible data that shows what happens when OPD gets to go fast and play cops and robbers in our neighborhoods: People die.”

KQED’s Elize Manoukian contributed to this report.